Semiconductor devices are manufactured by repeatedly performing various processes such as an etching process, a film forming process and the like on a semiconductor wafer (hereinafter simply to as a “wafer”) used as a target substrate.
A single type processing apparatus for processing target substrates one by one has been often used as a substrate processing apparatus. However, since such a substrate processing apparatus is required to improve throughput, a substrate processing apparatus for performing the substrate process on two or more target substrates at once while maintaining a platform of the single type processing apparatus, has also been used.
In such a substrate processing apparatus, a substrate mounting table on which a plurality of target substrates is mounted is installed within a chamber. On the substrate mounting table, a plurality of process regions and separation regions by which the plurality of process regions is separated are alternately defined along a circumferential direction of the substrate mounting table. During the substrate process, the substrate mounting table is rotated such that the plurality of target substrates passes through the process regions and the separation regions in a sequential order of “the process region, the separation region, the process region, the separation region, . . . .” Thus, the plurality of target substrates is subjected to the substrate process under different gas supply conditions.
In the related art, in order to perform the substrate process on the plurality of target substrates under different gas supply conditions, exhaust mechanisms are separately installed with respect to respective process regions. This increases manufacturing costs of the substrate processing apparatus.